In the next ten years, the Spanish labor market will increasingly marginalize less educated young people while providing expanded opportunities for the highest qualified

Fundación BBVA-Ivie report on past developments and future prospects for young Spaniards’ training and employment

Young Spaniards’ employment prospects are set to improve in the next ten years due to a large-scale generational handover, with the added boost of net job creation if growth momentum can be sustained. The bulk of opportunities will be for the most highly qualified among them – in terms of both formal educational level and actual competences acquired – while less educated youngsters will be denied labor-market access, accentuating the employment inequalities observed during the crisis.

Without more forceful public and private initiatives to improve their employability, less educated young people will be at increased risk of labor-market exclusion, according to the Fundación BBVA-Ivie report La formación y el empleo de los jóvenes españoles. Trayectoria reciente y escenarios futuros. Written by Lorenzo Serrano and Ángel Soler, researchers at the Valencian Institute for Economic research (Ivie) and professors at the University of Valencia, the report takes an in-depth look at the labor-market difficulties faced during the last three crises by young people aged 16 to 34, the role of education and training in overcoming these difficulties, and the employment outlook for the next ten years.